Alcoa to Combine UBC, Scrap Purchasing Operations

The aluminum firm Alcoa has announced plans to combine Evermore Recycling, its group that is responsible for recycling aluminum in the packaging market, with its aluminum scrap purchasing group, which recycles aluminum used in other markets such as aerospace, automotive and industrial, into a single organization that it will call Alcoa Recycling.

The two groups collected for recycling about 1.4 billion pounds of aluminum scrap combined in 2012. Alcoa notes that by merging the two groups into Alcoa Recycling, it will be able to leverage the two divisions’ strengths and go to the market in a singular, focused manner, says Michael Boyle, Alcoa’s director of metal management, who will oversee the combined group.

Boyle says, "The vast majority of our partners in the marketplace have the capability to supply both scrap and UBCs (used beverage containers) to Alcoa for recycling. This new organization will now interface with the market as one entity.”

Kevin Lowery, a spokesman for Alcoa, says the impact on the employees will be minimal. “Essentially there has been no impact on the people who work for Alcoa.”

With the merger, the name Evermore Recycling will be discontinued. Lowery adds that staff who were involved with handling UBCs through Evermore will be trained and educated about the dynamics of the scrap aluminum market, while Alcoa representatives who only focused on scrap aluminum will learn about the UBC markets as well.

In announcing the formation of the new group, Alcoa says that the company recently formed a closed-loop recycling program with the aerospace firm Boeing that will significantly increase the reuse of internal aluminum aerospace alloys generated from the production of Boeing airplanes. At the outset of that arrangement, the company expects about 8 million pounds of high-value 2XXX and 7XXX series aluminum alloys will be recycled per year. The program also lays the groundwork for expansion of the effort to capture scrap from Boeing subcontractors. Similar programs have been underway for years across Alcoa's customer base.